We have just got back from witnessing a terrible incident. Doug was phoned by a neighbouring farmer, Vernon, who said that a lot of his lambs had been shot and he needed help. We arrived to find at least six lambs and two ewes with bloody holes in their necks - Vernon had done a head check and was missing 26 lambs, presumably shot and picked up, with another two dead in the field and the eight badly wounded. It was gut wrenching to see, especially when it was decided that the others would have to be killed as their gun shot wounds were too bad to save them. Doug very quickly dealt with the six worse and slit their throats to put them out of their misery. After he had skinned them, he was horrified to see how bad their injuries were - not only did they have the visible hole in the necks but a number of them were riddled with bullets, one lamb, who looked surprisingly bright before it was killed, and was very nearly spared was found to have a bullet through its shoulder, back and one bullet had literally torn straight through its liver, had he been left he would have suffered a very long and painful death. Vernon's wife was particularly upset about an orphan lamb that she had been bottle feeding and it was decided to try and save him as his wounds weren't quite as bad as the others, also we decided to spare a ewe, who although badly shot in the neck, the bullet looked as though it had come out on the same side, and she was rearing two lambs, so they were both given a huge dose of penicillin and the wounds sprayed. Fingers crossed they will make it. The police were there and thought it looked like a 'killing to order' job - apparently a Polish gang have been involved in another slaughter of lambs not too far away. They were using high velocity rifles, which apart from anything else could have killed someone two fields away if they had been caught in the cross fire.
It really is quite horrifying that things like this can happen and that the perpetrators will probably never be caught - Poor Vernon, loves his stock and was in total shock, he has been targeted by gypsies a number of times before, who have stolen various pieces of machinery, but to cause suffering to innocent animals like this is just going to another level of brutality and heartlessness. The tiny bit of silver lining was the way the local farmers gathered around to help, all very shocked as it could be them next time. They are understandably getting very frustrated at the lack of arrests happening, and I don't think it will be long before someone takes the law in their own hands and we will be skinning something different from a lamb.....